Animals and Birds : A Stocktaking
STOCKTAKING is not confined to the sphere of sale and mart. It is useful also to the human mind. There. come moments to all of us when we desire to register the precise state of our feelings about a given subject ; and I propose here to take stock of my feelings in regard to creatures furred and feathered.
What rules the special bent of our sympathies, why some of us should be fond of animals and others be indifferent to them, I suppose none of us can really find out, no more than we can tell why bees sting such an one and leave such another severely alone. We must take ourselves as we are, animal lovers or not. It is, however, clear to me that I am an animal and bird-lover, and that the longer I live the more store I set by their existence, partly because, with the years, all life seems more attrac- tive, but also, I think, because they have become a definite refuge from the increasing mechanism- of the age.' To sit in a garden or to walk or ride in woods and fields, watching the movement of creatures that do not run on wheels, or listening to songs neither mechanically nor sophisticatedly produced, is as water to a thirsty plant. There is, then, in my feeling about animals and birds-- and probably in that of all animal lovers—a considerable dash of gratitude for refreshment quietly given. And this gratitude, of which we can make no direct expression, because those who give rise to it would not understand, finds its natural vent in our revolt at seeing them ill- treated, and in our wish that they should be free and happy. People indifferent to animals and birds do not, perhaps, recognize that animal lovers in their efforts on behalf of beasts and birds, are trying to pay a debt and preserve their own peace of mind. To the four-footed' and the' winged I, at least, am in definite debt, which in decency must, to the poor extent of my capacity, dis- charge ; but this means that I must first know clearly. how I stand in regard to the customary treatment of them.
Now, there are questions which divide even animal lovers, and on which it is difficult for me to tell exactly, how I feel. Of them the two most prominent are Blood Sports and Vivisection. I know that I cannot personally, any longer take part in Blood Sports. With every year-. that one comes nearer to death life seems more and more mysterious and desirable, and the thought of taking life more and more distasteful : in other words, the nerves revolt. To shoot partridges would now be to nIV 'as little_ agreeable as to kill the chickens that I eat; But so long- as I do eat chicken and game there would be falsity in" protesting against others shooting game birds. Nor can' I -get out of thiS impasse by becoming a vegetarian ;. for vegetarianism involves a liberal destruction of life=- rabbits and rats and birds—to say nothing of slugs and insects. I can be, however, and am, definitely against two blood sports, hare-coursing and stag-hunting ; for these creatures, both destructive to Crops, can be kept in bounds by shooting, yet, being edible, and the case of stags, at least) ornamental, are not liable to complete extinction : moreover, the hind and the hare are tithid, and not even the stag is a hunter before the Lord, like the fox and the otter. To hunt them is to subject them to unnecessary suffering merely for our own excitement and pleasure.
The fox and the otter are in different case. I will not go otter-hunting and I will not go fox-hunting, for I haire come to dislike the feeling of being one of a pack, and the closing in on a hunted beast. But that is a private revolt and does not in itself give me the right to protest. Since I was once a " sportsman " I think I understand pretty well the feelings of—say—a Master of fox or otter hounds. He feels himself to be a sort of trustee for the traditional way of keeping down the numbers of two very destructive animals, sly, hardy and courageous, who themselves live by hUnting ; a -way which gives a great deal of healthy open-air exercise and pleasure to a great many people, and to a great many horses and hounds ; which fosters the breeding and careful treatment of those horses and hounds; who to hiM are the hub of animal creation and for whom he has a genuine love. He feels, too, that his fox or otter hunting promotes a kind of human fellowship of which, incidentally, he is the head ; that it toughens the temper, the courage and the muscles of the " field," and carries on what might' be called the spirit of " Old England." He knows that if fox and otter hunting were given up; the fox and the otter, being uneatable, would soon be extinct in this country, at the hands of the farmers and fishermen whom they despoil. He knows that he himself will one day be hunted to death by Nature, but that does not spoil his joy in life, and he, very humanly, feels that those creatures for whom he has a queer affection would;. as he would himself, rather be alive at the risk of some day being hunted to death than not be alive at all. He probably thinks, and possibly with truth, that neither fox nor otter greatly feel the stress of being hunted until their powers begin to fail, and fioM that point on to the end he would say is but a few minutes. And he cannot see the force Of abolishing the whole process of which he is trustee, for the sake of avoiding those few ditressful minutes in the life of a creature that preys on others. The argument that the fox and the otter, being predatory, ought to be destroyed once for all, does not appeal to him ; nor does it to me, fora certain rudimentary logic informs me that man, as the most predatory of all animals, is on those grounds the most worthy of total destruction. Such are the feelings, I think, of the fox and the otter hunting man. I hope I have been just to him, though I cannot myself any more go fox or otter hunting.
I now come to my feelings about Vivisection. Here is the prime case of humanitarian cutting humanitarian. And, in spite of long heart-searchings on the subject, I am still at sea. The human being cannot persist at all without exercising the instinct of self-preservation. The exercise of this instinct involves the destruction of other forms of life. How far. this destruction of other forms of life may be carried, is, then, a question not of principle but of degree. Certain results from experiments on animals, such as the cure for hydrophobia, cannot, I suppose, be denied ; and, generally speaking, if it can be proved that experimention animals under anaesthetics, followed by instant death, are essential to the preservation of human life, I see no logical case against them. But, generally speaking, can it be proved ? The vivisectionists say : Yes ; the anti-vivisectionists say : No. How is a layman to decide ? The fight on this question has ever been so hot and bitter that one has learned to distrust both sides. I may have the private impression that the whole of modern research is the result of a wrong-headed system of devoting to cure energy that would be better devoted to wholesale prevention ; energy that should be primarily concerned_ with securing for everybody the maximum of fresh air, sun, exercise, cleanliness, good food and pure water—rather than with the production of conditions that cause disease and necessitate remedies therefor. Let me take practical instances, in pen() : It has been found better to abolish rabies in this country by prevention than to trust to the cure for hydrophobia discovered by the Pasteur experiments ; better to abolish cholera by modern sanitation, and plague by strict isolation, than to await outbreaks and search for cures. Unhappily, we are a long way from the general application of this principle. I loathe the thought of experiments on animals ; but I also loathe the thought of human beings suffering and dying unnecessarily. I do not honestly believe that I could let someone I care for die rather than use the result of vivisectional dis- covery, if I were convinced that it was curative. On the other hand, I do not know how in many cases a layman can be convinced of that. Out-and-out anti-vivisec- tionists base their attitude on doing to others as they would be done by, and taking no toll from the weak ; on the plea, in fact, that vivisection degrades those who make use of it. Such principles are worthy of all honour, but the perfect application of them would long ago have solved for_ us not only this but all other human problems, since the human race would be extinct, if, indeed, it had ever come into being. On this main question I am, therefore, hopelessly at sea. What emerges for me is this : If vivisection were confined to experiments on anaesthetized animals, followed by instant destruction, I am not certain enough to protest ; but destruction and torture are totally different things. We have the right to destroy for our preservation, but I don't think we have the right to torture even for that ; and against vivisection, if and so far as it implies torture, I do protest. In any event I feel that vivisectional experiments should be confined to a minimum and be under the strictest possible supervision. So much for my feeling on the doubtful questions. Against what customary treatment of animals and birds can I protest with all my heart ? Well, if I were an English Mussolini, I would to-morrow, by a stroke of the pen, abolish the following practices, believing that in so doing I was interpreting the real sense and feeling of the English people as a whole, and that the abolitions would be observed : The use of the iron trap or any methods of destroying rabbits (and other furred creatures) except shooting, or devices that cause practically immediate death. The chaining of watch-dogs except for very limited hours. The private caging of any wild birds whatsoever. The docking of any horses' tails. The slaughter of any animals for food except with humane killers. The exportation of any horse over ten years of age worth less than £30. I would further make certain prohibitions so that other practices should gradually die out. I would prohibit the future acquisition of any animals or birds for the purpose of travelling menageries or animal-performance shows ; the acquisition of roaming creatures—such as the great cats, wolves, bears, eagles, vultures and the like—for Zoos ; and the acquisition of ponies for use in mines ; and I would fix a date, say five years hence, when it should become illegal to use horses for traction in towns. All these practices offend humane feeling and some offend commonsense ; they are none of them really necessary, and they all inflict suffering in varying degree and kind. Why, for instance, except that money has been invested in them, should we continue to use horses for traction purposes in towns ? The prac- tice is hard, to say the least of it, on horses, and is a real disturbance to traffic, considering the extreme length of horse-drawn vehicles and their slow unwieldiness. There might be hardship in abolishing the practice out of hand, but there could be no hardship in providing for its gradual extinction. That extinction, in fact, is long overdue, and I cannot imagine why a people so concerned about the congestion of its streets has not seen to it before now. To expatiate here on my feeling about travelling mena- geries and zoos would take too long, but I am clear that the first want abolition, or at least gradual extinction, and the second need serious curtailment.
So much for my feeling about customary treatment that presses for remedy. As for perverse or constitutional cruelty, there is no need for any lover of animals to search his soul ; it is to him simply the accursed thing.
I have tried to come honestly at my state of feeling in this short " stocktaking." Against certain practices I protest whole-heartedly ; against some I cannot protest, though I will not take part in them ; and there is one, at least, over which as a whole I am unable to make up my mind.
I get from birds and animals increasing pleasure ; I feel with them increasing kinship ; and I would I could
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